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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

When bitcoin was first developed using the rehashed blockchain technology of the late 1990s, it had to have an incredible theme to sell to lure investors into buying something that was worthless.

Thus, the crypto proponents used the limited supply concept of bitcoin to entice investors to buy into the "Too good to be true" theme. As the proponents and the ignorant investors didn't have a true understanding of the economic principles of demand and supply, the investors were taken in because they thought that the demand and supply had a direct inverse relationship. They thought the declining mining supply would drive up the bitcoin prices to astronomical levels. As the bitcoin prices started to rise dramatically, the proponents had to concoct another story to drive the bitcoin further into the stratosphere. Therefore, they preyed on the psychological mindsets with the "Fear of missing out (FOMO)" theme. They claimed that more merchants and other retail investors are entering the crypto markets because crypto was going to revolutionize the world. It worked marvellously until bitcoin reached almost US$20,000.

Then, the harsh reality of market forces started to creep in and bitcoin prices started to fall tremendously. Those proponents didn't give up and come up with another theme again. This time, they proclaimed that the financial institutions and fund managers would enter the crypto market soon and this would cause bitcoin to spike. However, the truth was that any serious financial institution would develop its own private blockchain instead because of privacy and security concerns and the private blockchain couldn't be mined or interconnected with the public blockchain.

As you can see, the proponents keep shifting the goal poles to lure investors to invest in crypto and will continue to do so. Subsequently, these proponents do not use the original rationale of limited supply concept to talk up the bitcoin prices anymore. Conversely, they will continue to keep talking up the bitcoin prices and won't warn the investors about the downfalls.

Ask yourself the following questions now.

Did the proponents warn you about the potential price fall when bitcoin was near US$20k? NO!
Did the proponents warn you about future price fall when bitcoin was at US$10k? NO!
Did the proponents warn you about further price fall when bitcoin was at US$5k? NO!

For your information, the bitcoin price is around US$3,500 now.

When the prices fell by 50% each time, they only encouraged you to buy more instead. Why would you still want to trust or believe in them then? Blind faith is a dangerous thing and will cause you big financial losses.

Please read our posting below to have a proper understanding of cryptocurrency before you really want to invest in crypto.

Sunday, January 20, 2019

Many such ICO predicaments will start to surface this year because the ICO issuers piggybacked their tokens onto other cryptos. The ethereum price fall had caused this ICO fundraising to dwindle from £20m to £5.5m and many ICO investors had sustained massive losses for this ICO.

This financial risk had been highlighted and validated by the binomial theorem in our financial analysis posting below. The ICO issuers will never highlight this financial risk to the ICO applicants. Therefore, it is important that the neophyte investors read our posting first before making any crypto and ICO investments.

Many neophyte investors have lost a lot of money in ICOs because they are ignorant about the financial risks and the ICO structures. Therefore, it is important for such investors to read our aforesaid posting to have a full grasp of cryptos and ICOs.

The year 2019 will be a dicey period for cryptos and ICOs because many ICO projects will fail and cause huge volatilities for the crypto markets. Many ICO scams will be declared this year!

When a highly successful ICO like basis which was backed by prominent VCs could collapse, other ICOs won't stand a good chance to succeed either.

Therefore, the RMB shouldn't be appreciated at all under normal circumstances.

What is/are causing RMB to appreciate then?

The proximate cause is the US Fed. The US Fed had become dovish recently by stating that it would be patient in hiking rates. The Fed's patience might be due to Trump and/or the economic data. This caused the USD to depreciate against other major currencies. Consequently, hungry investors are going after higher investment returns by snatching up assets and investments in China since US interest rates are not going to spike much in 2019.

Baltic Dry Index is compiled by the London-based Baltic Exchange and covers prices for transported cargo such as coal, grain and iron ore. The index is based on a daily survey of agents all over the world. Baltic Dry hit a temporary peak on May 20, 2008, when the index hit 11,793. The lowest level ever reached was on Wednesday the 10th of February 2016, when the index dropped to 290 points.

The US drilling rig count dropped 25 units to reach 1,050 rigs working for the week ended Jan. 18. The count is up 114 units from the 936 rigs working this time a year ago, according to Baker Hughes data.

Twenty-three fewer rigs were drilling on land week-over-week, bringing the number to 1,029. Two fewer rigs were counted offshore, bringing to 19 the total number of units drilling. Inland waters were unchanged at 2 rigs working for the week.

US oil-directed rigs dropped 21 units from last week to 852 units working but remained up from the 747 rigs drilling for oil this week a year ago. Gas-directed rigs were down 4 units at 198, and up from the 189 units drilling for gas a year ago.

Among the major oil and gas-producing states, Texas was down 11 rigs to 521 units working. Oklahoma was down 10 units to 126. California, down 3 units this week, reached 7 rigs working. Louisiana and Kansas, with respective counts of 61 and 1, were down 2 units each. Pennsylvania, at 48 this week, and Colorado, at 34, were down 1 rig each.

Utah was unchanged this week at 6 units working.

Six states were up 1 unit. These were New Mexico, 108; North Dakota, 54; Wyoming, 34; Ohio, 17; West Virginia, 15; and Alaska, 10.

Canada has added 25 rigs for the week. While the jump puts the total number of rigs running at 209, the count is less than the 325 units drilling this week a year ago.

The number of oil-directed rigs in Canada increased by 25, bringing the count to 128 rigs for the week. Gas-directed rigs were unchanged at 81 units.

Stockbank LLP

A pundit of the third realm, a sapient, unflappable and nonpareil homosapien, with monumental fortitude and tremendous tenacity, one who has been through the vicissitudes of life, and has mastered great dexterity and virtuosity to discern between verisimilitude and actual reality.